One of the reasons why people struggle with intense poverty is as a result of lack of financial management. There are few ways that are mostly common in effectively achieving financial management is to keep the records of your finances, which includes your expenses, budgets and ensuring your debit rate is not above the amount you earn. Which seems quite simple as long as you can adhere to the rules of cutting your coat according to your size. Not everyone has the inbuilt drive to save for raining days due to a lot of reasons probably because their earnings is not capable of catering for their lifestyle or they spend more they earn.
Which ever way it might seem, I believe no matter how poor a person's saving habit is, one thing every individual needs to ensure is to make sure they don't venture into debt or depend on loan for survival, the effect of depending on loan for survival is immense poverty or lack of financial stability. There are different reasons for seeking out loan e.g business and personal needs. For business reasons as long as you have a genuine and well calculated business plan to use the money for I believe it is ok as long as the interest is not too burdensome though profits and success of the business are not guaranteed, it all depends on how creative such an individual is.
Apart from business related reasons people also seek out loan for personal reasons e.g for clothing, transportation, accommodation, party, feeding e.t.c this are basic life necessities but are they worthy of seeking out loan for? I have seen cases whereby couples seek out loan to finance their wedding ceremonies to suit their taste but at the long run when the whole party is over they find themselves struggling to pay back the loan. They are some parties that generates funds such as wedding ceremonies but it is not guaranteed. When it comes to applying for loan, securing a means of payment is very important. You must have drafted out a logical and reasonable means to pay back the loan before applying for the loan.
What I have realised and come to understand from studying humans is that, they will make all kind of promises just to secure a loan and the most funny aspect of it is that most of this promises are based on fantasies and speculations. Probably they believe when they get the loan they will surely find a way to pay it back but it doesn't work like that. You might be lucky to find someone to help you out but is it guaranteed? to the extent that they find themselves borrowing money from other sources to pay back an unpaid loan creating an endless circle of being in debt. Which could have been avoided if they had a solid plan to pay back the loan. You can have more than 50 achievable ways planned just to ensure that you pay back the loan.
Over the years I have seen a lot of people depend on mobile apps for loans because it is fast in granting loan request and the requirement process is less rigid unlike commercial banks that seeks for a lot documents just to ensure whoever is seeking for a loan has a means to pay back. Just like everyone else, I also find myself in a situation when I had to take out a loan from a mobile app. It was during my higher national diploma clearance which is the phase of every polytechnic graduate to spend every penny till there is nothing left. The thing about me is that I'm good at planning for unforseen circumstances but my plans always depends what I can predict.
My school suddenly increased the amount of fees needed to be paid for the clearance, the change was very drastic and unexpected because I had already left home with the previous amount only to get in the middle of the clearance and an announcement was made that additional amount has been included. I couldn't call home instantly to inform them about it because it was not the first time an amount was added, informing them again of the increase didn't sound right to me so I had to solve the issue myself.
One of the reasons why the situation was so urgent was that I had to finish my clearance as fast as possible so that my name will be included for the next senate list for NYSC batch A stream 1. I got the loan from one of my mobile banking apps but the interest wasn't funny at all. I paid back the loan eventually but I was bitter all through. I was just glad I had a means to pay back, if not I would have been buried in debt which means if I had the choice of getting the funds from somewhere else, I wouldn't have taken the loan.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled "The Good loan" in hive learners community.
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